writer essential qualities -- can be developed

so, my word count basically stinks this week. i have very valid excuses and would say that I need to be kicked, but I feel a little beaten down. a family friend passed away monday, so that's part of it. must get some words down today. had a great evening with THE laura jensen walker and husband michael last night. and okay, i'm not any sort of homemaker example, so it felt mighty good to hear laura say, "i had no idea you were such a fabulous cook!" golly, gee, shucks. pasta, german wine, fire in the fireplace, writing talk -- a great night.

loved the comments about writer's abstract tools and thought i'd add something new to the mix, some qualities needed to keep on in this wild writing life.

here we go...COURAGE and PERSERVERANCE and EGO (yep, you read it right)

COURAGE -- someone said and this is all misquoted, but something like, "courage isn't a lack of fear, it's having fear but doing what needs to be done anyway." how many of us hear writer's say how fearful and doubtful and insecure they often feel as the blood, oh I mean, words are translated from body to page? and yet, they keep doing it.

how many amazing talents do we know who stay buried or lost because of lack of courage and perserverance?

PERSEVERANCE -- i'm not a patient person. and i'm not one of those people who would survive hypothermia, frostbite, and dehydration. once in a fishing boat on the ocean, i begged by husband to throw me overboard because i was so terribly seasick. i just wanted to sink into cool water and be done with it. and yet in writing, when my face is in the gravel with my hands and legs sprawled out on the ground, i do somehow get up again. and part of the writer's badge of courage is to be patient...it is a life of waiting for things. but, hey, it's not like you have to gut fish for a living, or wear business clothes or a hair net to work....

EGO -- the book, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, gave me a different perspective on egotism. i think we discredit ourselves and our god by false humility, by self-loathing, by continued insecurity. if we have a gift or a calling, this is what we need to do.

here's a thought about publishing. doesn't it seem that a writer pursuing publication is a little egotistical? i mean, you must want acknowledgment, fame, praise and all those ingredients of pride. and yet, wouldn't someone creating a gourmet meal desire someone to eat that meal? wouldn't an architect or a builder desire people to live inside their creation, or as in our local sundial bridge, certainly santiago calatrava desires people to walk across his design and admire the beauty of it?

it is ego. and it should be.

i mentioned this thought to laura and she referred to a madeleine l'engle book that a writer's project is not complete without the reader. the dwellers within the dwelling, i suppose.

maybe part of our creative instinct to know, "and it is good."

there are other writer's qualities surely, but i found these of most interest today. maybe because i need them to get off blogging and back to my work-in-possible-progress.

anyway, are you lacking courage, the strength to keep on keeping on, or an ego otherwise called confidence? they are attainable. seek them. get back up. keep going. have faith. sometimes you pretend a while and then it happens naturally.